Category Archives: Wedding

This is my very first Wedding Profile. In 2009 my boyfriend (now Husband) and I flew to Austin, TX to attend our friends wedding. Joe and Jamie are not only some of my favorite people, but they are a wonderfully creative couple and I knew that their wedding was going to reflect that. When I was told that it was a Dia De Los Muertos themed Wedding, I was ecstatic, since I had never seen (nor heard) of a wedding with that theme before. We attended their wedding four months prior to our engagement, so I wasn’t formally ‘indoctrinated’ into the wedding world yet.

Their Wedding truly opened my eyes to the fact that a Wedding can be anything that you want it to be. So I sent a message to Jamie and asked for permission to feature her here. She was very happy to oblige, and filled out some great information for Soon-to-be-Brides everywhere. Check out what Jamie had to say below and make sure to view the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/62175628@N03/sets/72157626462607223/

Location & date of wedding:

The Crystal River Inn San Marcos, TX on 10/10/2009

I thought that a B&B would be a lot more intimate than a hotel but still be able to accommodate for rooms on site. B&Bs often have great backyards or gardens for that whimsical element.

Did you do any DIY projects:

I made the bouquets and boutonnieres myself. For the bouquets I used seasonal flowers (including Chinese lanterns) and wrapped them in black ribbon. For the boutonnieres, I actually used fake flowers so that I could do them ahead of time and also, because I felt that so they would make better keepsakes. One of my coworkers is crafty too so she ended up making a birdcage veil for me complete with little clay skulls that I had found at the Mexican market in San Antonio. This is where we also bought over half of the Day of the Dead figures and items we used to decorate the offerenda center pieces. I forgot, I also DIYed my own garter using black ribbon, pearls, and a little skull.

What did you do to help keep on your Wedding on budget:

Try to find the most costly wedding necessities (i.e. venue, dress, cakes, food, etc) for as cheap as possible, because everything else (even the small stuff) will really add up. I bought my dress from an online store overseas that makes replicas of designer dresses; my Lazaro replica only cost me $150! Even the “cheap” off-brand wedding dresses here in the U.S. would have cost way more than that. Also, consider getting married in a venue that is not primarily known for weddings. That will decrease the price and so will choosing a small town locale.

Your favorite moment of the day:

My favorite moment of the day was seeing our family members go crazy over the black and white photos of deceased loved ones in the offerenda centerpieces. My family didn’t originally understand what Day of the Dead stands for. It is a holiday that rejoices in love and togetherness and embraces loved ones who are both living and dead. Death is inevitable, so why should it be so morbid? When my family saw the pictures at the wedding they finally seemed to understand. They were so happy to see the people that they loved- alive and well, immortalized forever. Some of the pictures that they had never seen, they were literally trying to steal off of the tables during the reception.

Advice for brides-to-be who are having an ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ wedding:

Explain the idea as nicely as possible to those closest to you, and don’t worry about the rest. I didn’t talk to my Grandmother soon enough and she started calling the wedding my “Night of the Living Dead Wedding”. Also I have to say that while DIY is amazing and can save you a great deal of money, don’t plan to do too much- especially at the last minute. I can’t stress that enough.

Any last words you’d like to add:

If you are going to do something different, make sure to do it well. People are going to be skeptical, so you want to show them that different is beautiful and that it can be both sophisticated and polished in all of its quirky wonder.

Happy Friday everyone! Today I looked at my calendar and realized that on April 31st it will officially be 6 months until Halloween! This halfway point means that any Brides having Hallow-Weddings are in the full swing of planning. In honor of Halloween, I would like to highlight something that I think is a really great idea for Wedding favors, and is also something interactive and fun for your guests. Plus, why spend tons of painstaking hours making your wedding favors when your guests can “Trick or Treat” and create their own?! Here is a quick DIY of how to make a Halloween Candy buffet frightfully delicious!

Bags-These bags by craft are an amazing deal. Granted, you can only buy them by the case, but you get 250 bags in a case for $48. You probably dont want to go much bigger than the ‘cub’ size to ensure that your guests dont get too carried away with their candy! Plus, you can pre-decorate these with stamps and/or ribbon taking a simple brown bag to something more like this:
Photo: Etsy Store- Crafty Pagan

If you prefer to only use ribbon to decorate, you can find some great Halloween themed ribbons at Joann’s fabrics (if you have one in your area) or if you do not have one nearby you can find great Halloween ribbon at Michaels about a month before Halloween.

Stamps-
These stamps from Inkadinkado are sold at Michaels and Joann’s closer to Halloween time, but Overstock has the 7 piece kit listed here. For your sanity, I suggest that you do not clear stamps- they are difficult to use if you are clumsy- or not very crafty, ah la me.

As far as what to serve your candy in, it really depends on the look that you are trying to achieve with your candy buffet. The more popular method is serving the candy in glassware. I assume this is to achieve more of a ‘Halloween-elegant’ look. If you are looking to have a little bit more whimsy on your Wedding day, try a pumpkin pail or a plastic cauldron filled with candy. The plastic cauldron method is definitely the cheaper way of doing things, with being able to buy the cauldrons for $3.98 a piece on Amazon.com.

Here is a photo of a Wedding that used the Plastic cauldron method:

And here is a photo of a Candy Buffet using Glassware (from HomebasedMom.com):

These are two totally different feelings, but they are both wonderful. To take this to another level, you could even have Halloween themed candy available. Example: Wax lips/fangs, Marzipan fingers, Gummy Worms, etc.

Happy planning to all you guys and ghouls out there. (Yes, another horror related joke…I know.)

If you go to ‘Davids Bridal’ or any other wedding dress website (in the main market) you will see an onslaught of white or cream colored dresses. Now, I am not disgracing how beautiful these dresses are (I, myself wore an ivory dress for my Wedding) but for Brides who have dreamed of a colored wedding dress, this can be totally discouraging. When you go dress shopping for a colored gown, you are told that a) you can buy a bridesmaids gown in your desired color b) wear a ‘sash’ with a ‘splash’ color or c) you will have to see a seamstress and have your dress custom made. Wedding Dress Fantasy has helped put an end to this with its wide array of dresses that are available in almost any color that you can think of.

For instance, if you find a dress on their website that you fall in love with but it is not in the right color- you can have it made in any color that you choose. If you are a bit leery about buying something so expensive online without ever having tried it on, I recommend two things. One, go to a wedding parlor and try on dresses to find out what style works best with your body. Heck, you might even find a dress that is more traditional than you originally had planned. The second recommendation I have is to visit a tailor (or two) to get your proper measurements and then figure out what size dress to according to the size chart. Remember: Any dress will need some sort of alterations done in order to ensure a perfect fit. Granted, if it’s minimal, sometimes you can get the desired effect by wearing the right kind of undergarments.

The best part about these dresses are how completely affordable they are. These gowns are under $700 dollars and some of the most beautiful I have seen- Bring on the dress lust!

Do we get Wedding redos because we fall in love with another dress? Le sighhhhh….

In typical HBA fashion, I wanted to show a Wedding that I am positive cost a small fortune, and how you can achieve the same look for much less.

In 2008 Good Charlotte’s Billy Martin got married and since then, his Wedding has been used as a source of inspiration. All with good reason- check out their table decor:

Here’s how to get this look at prices you can afford:
–Birdcages from Save On Crafts I am a huge fan of this site. I bought several items from here and they were all sent quickly, and exactly as described. These smaller birdcages are $15 a piece, and look great with ivory candles inside.
–Candles from Candles For LessYou can get a box of six pillar candles for $5.99 (and if you are like me, and are a bit candle crazy you can definitely appreciate this)
– For glassware and flowers(should you choose to use real ones) I highly recommend checking out a wholesale flower place if you have one nearby. Very often they will have someone on contract who specializes in creating centerpieces/bouquets for Weddings and their fee is MUCH cheaper than using a florist. We paid 75% less on our flowers than what we would have spent at a Florist (believe me I checked)
–Rose Petals– In lieu of real rose petals, Save On Crafts has some really nice ones and you can barely tell the difference of real/fake. They also come in a variety of colors. These are what we used.

Of course there are many other little details that you can interchange here, but this is a very basic way to set the stage.

These Toe Tags would be a great addition to any Horror/Halloween Wedding. These are made to be used as drink tags/wine charms for a Halloween party but there is also another creative/fun way to use them.

I saw this Wedding featured on Off Beat Bride last year, just a week before my Wedding. Jessi and John were/are my Wedding dopplegangers. However, they did use a super creative method of assigning seats at their Wedding that I wish I had thought of. They hung their Toe Tags from a tree (if you look at their photo slideshow on Flickr you can see it) and each tag had a different guest name/table name written on it.

Using the comment section to write in different Horror Movie titles that corresponded to table centerpieces is (and was) GENIUS. At $2.99 for 24 pieces, these are simply- to die for. (I never could resist a good pun!)

For the record, I am far too accident prone to wear high heels (I would have broken ankles all year long). When I got to thinking about what sort of footwear to choose for the Wedding I was so tempted to break my usual routine and wear high heels but when I thought about being on my feet all day in a long dress and navigating many obstacles- the decision was easy.

This led my Husband and I to the idea of wearing Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein shoes- His and Hers. This was no easy task to find, let me tell you. After an intense Google search (I made it to page 20 of the results) and still coming up with nothing, I saw an ad for a website called http://www.Zazzle.com.

Zazzle (which is decidedly similar to Cafepress) has a ton of ‘create your own’ options. At the time so I was simply going to find a photo and screen it onto the shoes. And then on a completely random whim I decided to type in “Bride of Frankenstein” into their search box. I remember thinking to myself, “They are not going to have anything, this is pointless.”

I was wrong.

The photo above is from my Wedding. The ladies in the heels were my beautiful (and more coordinated) Bridesmaids. If you click the Ms. Fright link, you can play around with your own customizations, just like I did! I also found my Husbands shoes here! The sizes for their shoes appear to only be for Women but the shoes look quite unisex in person and since you can customize the colors, all for $72.00 it’s actually a bargain. You can see a photo of my Husband and I’s shoes together here.

For those who love heels, there are some wonderful Horror heels. Check out this search on Amazon: Zombie Heels

If only I were coordinated, had lots of money and endless closet space….

My name is Jennifer Noelle Johnson. This is me on my Wedding Day, right before I walked down the aisle.

As is the case with many brides in this day and age, I did almost all of my preliminary Wedding planning online. I searched far and wide to find things that fit my vision of a Horror/Macabre theme (while doing it on the cheap). This took an obscene amount of time. It was surprisingly difficult to find things that weren’t geared toward Haunted Houses, or Halloween parties- not to discount that some Brides are looking to achieve this, but it wasn’t what I had in mind.

The purpose of this blog is to be a one-stop resource for anyone looking for: Inspiration, Wedding/Reception venues, advice or to simply browse/buy these out of the ordinary items. This is something I sincerely wish I had access to while planning our Wedding. In the days to come I will be interviewing some Horror Brides and posting their Wedding stories here!

Since this is my first post, I will leave you with one of the things that first caught my eye when I first got engaged-Zombie Cake Toppers. I searched Etsy and found a lovely seller named Beeloverly who even customized ours to look like us. But if Zombies are not your thing- this Dia De Los Muertos cake topper from dnacreations is amazing- and at 48.00 it’s a steal!

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